One of the 9th grade classes went on a camping trip to Anza Borrego recently. If you are from that class, you'll enjoy this story. If not, I hope you enjoy it anyway!
There is a place in Anza Borrego known as Sheep's canyon. It's a very nice place, very open, very serene . . . usually. The one exception just so happened to occur while I was - you guessed it - backpacking there with my Boy Scout troop. Unfortunately, that day happened to be windy. Very windy. I'm talking 50 miles per hour winds. Even more unfortunately, the wind was not at our backs, but rather blowing towards us, making forward progress difficult. Probably most unfortunately of all, we were in the desert, and for those of you who don't know the implications of strong winds in a desert, the wind picks up sand and flings it, in my case, right at my face, and the faces of everyone else in my troop. (click below to read more)
I was lucky. I happened to be wearing sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and a backpack that was stuffed to the top. The wind threw the sand at us in waves; my eyes were protected from the wind, so I could look and see when the waves of sand were coming. I simply protected myself by turning around, tilting my head so that my hat covered the back of my neck, and let my backpack take the full force of the sand. I was also wearing long pants; one of the boys in my troop who was wearing shorts got his leg hairs sandblasted off! To this day, I never go on a hiking trip with shorts on. I also was large enough to have sufficient inertia so that I wasn't blown off of my feet. One of the smaller kids was taking three steps forward and four steps back, five steps forward and seven steps back.
It gets better, though. We finally arrived at our campsite and the wind was blowing like it wanted to fling the three little pigs halfway to China. My friends and I found an area surrounded almost completely with scrub brush, and thought, This will shelter us from the wind nicely. So, we set up our tent in the center of the ring, hunkered down, and got out some playing cards. As we were playing, the wind was howling, and our tent was flapping all over the place. I was wondering, if it was this bad for us, how much worse must it be for everyone else? Just then, another boy knocked on our tent, and shouted above the wind, "Hey, you guys! Come on out! We're going to move your tent!"
"Why?" we responded.
"You guys found the perfect wind tunnel!"
The moral of the story is this: never wear shorts in the desert.
It gets better, though. We finally arrived at our campsite and the wind was blowing like it wanted to fling the three little pigs halfway to China. My friends and I found an area surrounded almost completely with scrub brush, and thought, This will shelter us from the wind nicely. So, we set up our tent in the center of the ring, hunkered down, and got out some playing cards. As we were playing, the wind was howling, and our tent was flapping all over the place. I was wondering, if it was this bad for us, how much worse must it be for everyone else? Just then, another boy knocked on our tent, and shouted above the wind, "Hey, you guys! Come on out! We're going to move your tent!"
"Why?" we responded.
"You guys found the perfect wind tunnel!"
The moral of the story is this: never wear shorts in the desert.